Monday, March 27, 2006

"The law of proportion according to which the several colours are formed,
even if a man knew he would be foolish in telling, for he could not give any
necessary reason, nor indeed any tolerable or probable explanation of them."Plato Timaeus

Pythagoras ~550BC

Aristotle ~350BC

Aron Sigfrid Forsius 1611

Athanasius Kircher 1646

Sir Isaac Newton 1704

Ignaz Schiffermüller 1772

Tobias Mayer 1775

Philipp Otto Runge 1810

Michel Eugène Chevreul 1839

Albert Henry Munsell 1915

Michel Albert-Vanel 1983

When doing a physics course once, we were allowed to basically dismiss one of the subject components in relation to assessment. Reading around about colour systems reaffirms my original belief that optical physics is not really my strong suit. So on this occasion I think I'll refrain from crafting any sort of summary - it's very interesting stuff for sure but, well...I'm not so sure I've comprehended it all well.

11 comments
:

It’ts fascinating to see all of these together. I saw an original of Runge’s colour system at an exhibition in London in ’94 or ’95. I recall that it was mentioned in connection with Goethe’s colour theory, but whether either one influenced the other, or were just contemporary, I don’t recall.

I once took a color theory class and every week we learned a new theory about how color worked. munsell's system is one we studied. but it is interesting to see how far back theyve been trying to solve color, and how they did it. that little beetle in the kircher one makes the most sense to me.

Eugene said... "It’ts fascinating to see all of these together. I recall that it was mentioned in connection with Goethe’s colour theory, but whether either one influenced the other, or were just teen contemporary, I don’t recall"

(comment with an embedded (what looked like on search) porn link removed...could it have been an accident? Mebbe.)